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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28126755">The 3am Collection</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tagged_reject_20/pseuds/Tagged_reject_20'>Tagged_reject_20</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gangsta. (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drabble Collection, F/M, Implied Relationships, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reader-Insert, Recreational Drug Use, maybe one day i will be able to write satisfactorily, so here's a bunch of prompts im attempting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:47:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,955</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28126755</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tagged_reject_20/pseuds/Tagged_reject_20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gangsta deserves more love. Almost all of these will be drabble because I can't formulate a coherent sentence in a word document right now ahaha so my apologies in advance</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nicolas Brown/Reader, Worick Arcangelo/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Nonsexual acts of intimacy: Patching up a wound</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’m not exactly sure what you expected to happen,” You chide, flicking the medicine cabinet door open so that it swung between you and Nicolas, temporarily hiding the lopsided grin that had been threatening to break through ever since the Twilight had approached you with blood running down his hand, irate at what had transpired moments prior.<br/>
“Stray cats are mean as fuck, especially when they have kittens.” He huffed, tongue poking out, signing with his unmarred right hand.<br/>
<strong>“No fucking kidding.”</strong> He eyes you wearily as you uncap the bottle, the scent stinging both your noses once it hits the open air. You gently roll back the unbuttoned sleeve of his (Worick’s) dress shirt up to his muscular forearm, fingers tracing the prominent veins that were usually hidden.<br/>
He thrusts his hand unceremoniously over the sink, lips pressed together in a thin line, and nods. The audible hissing is enough to make you wince, eyes flicking between the bubbling occurring on the back of Nic’s hand and the twisted grimace on his face at the sensation. You run his hand under the icy water once you’re convinced the first round has done all it can, not even pausing to observe the temporary relief on his features before mercilessly pouring more peroxide on the open scratches.<br/>
“Can’t have you keeling over from cat scratch fever,” He rolls his eyes at that, the corners of his mouth quirking up. You rinse and repeat the process, noticing his lack of reaction as you assume the peroxide is doing its job in cleaning out the wounds.<br/>
Nicolas flexes his fingers while you dab the back of his hand dry, tapping off-beat into your open palm. You grin to yourself, focusing on applying antibiotic ointment to the worst of the scratches. He stills when you go to apply the band aids, making a satisfied grunt when you’re done, curling his hand into a fist to test his new range of movement.<br/>
“All done,” you say with a smile, brushing the trash into the small can next to the sink.<br/>
He reaches out and wraps an arm around your shoulder, pulling you into his chest and places a chaste kiss to your temple.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Jeopardy and chill. That's it, that's the whole thing.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I couldn't find a prompt I was *feeling* so this was partly inspired by how I personally de-stress. Also, I have a headcannon that Worick is a secret stoner because I mean come on now. Please let this man relax, he deserves it</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The light from the small television illuminates the interior of the sparsely furnished apartment, bathing you and Worick in a soft glow.<br/>
<em>“In Ancient Rome, a balteus was a shoulder “belt” formed from the twisted folds of one of these garments.”</em><br/>
“What is a toga,” Worick murmured into your hair, warm breath tickling the side of your neck. He absentmindedly traces circular patterns into the smooth expanse of exposed skin above the waistband of your shorts, blue eye fixed on the game show. You pay him no mind, focusing on the slowly smoldering blunt pinched between your fingers.<br/>
The previously exhaled smoke creates a hazy filter, light bouncing off it and visibly lingering throughout the room. Nicolas is downstairs, the sounds of him racking his chosen weights drifting up to the pair of you lounging on the couch.<br/>
“Maybe we shouldn’t have bought him the weight bench,” you muse as Worick deftly takes the proffered blunt.  He shrugs his left shoulder, taking a generous hit before replying.<br/>
“The more time he spends exercising, the less time he spends brooding.” Smoke curls around him as he snuffs out the cherry, leaving the remaining three quarters propped up against the lip of the ashtray for later. You snuggle in closer, relishing the pleasant mellow high that you allowed yourself to indulge twice a week.<br/>
<em>“This synonym for remorseful adds three letters to “trite” and comes from the same Latin word.”</em><br/>
“Contrite!” Beaming, you pull back to stick your tongue out at Worick, triumphant at finally getting a correct answer out before the resident genius. He chuckles bemusedly, leaning down to give you a languid kiss. His lips are sticky from leftover resin and you can faintly taste the mango flavored blunt you’d rolled earlier that night.<br/>
You breathe in the vestiges of his expensive cologne and the mid-grade weed, hands tangling through his ashen hair. Fingernails scrape up your sides to your chest beneath the thin white tank top, sparks arcing up your back to the top of your head and back down to your toes.<br/>
He runs his tongue along the seam of your lips, deepening the kiss while his sure hands guide you into his lap. You grind down into him immediately, grinning wickedly against his mouth when you hear his quiet gasp. Neither of you register the lack of sound coming from the lower level, too engrossed in each other.<br/>
“You’re a devil woman,” Worick groans, threading his fingers through your hair, gripping it tightly at the scalp. One slight tug had your eyes rolling into the back of your head, whine catching in the back of your throat. Sharp white teeth graze your throat, causing the hairs on your arms and the back of your neck to rise. He leans back against the worn couch, head tilted, surveying you through a single calculating eye.<br/>
You shiver with anticipation, gazing at the gigolo through hooded eyes, bottom lip caught between your teeth.<br/>
“What do you think we should do with her?” Nicolas emerges forth from the dark, stalking toward you, every inch the formidable predator that he is. He stands behind Worick, teeth bared in an animalistic smile, and growls out <strong>“nAUghTy gIRl.”</strong> The sound of his gravelly voice goes straight through you, making your body flush with a mix of pleasure and embarrassment. You shift slightly in Worick’s lap, eyebrow raised and waiting despite the anxiety churning in your gut.<br/>
Taking the Benriya boys at the same time never failed to disappoint, though they seemed to make a point to conspire behind your back to come up with new and exciting ways to spread the pleasure amongst the three of you.<br/>
Nicolas climbs over the back of the couch and settles in beside his partner, signing at a quick pace you can’t discern. The mischievous expression that overtakes Worick’s face, mirrored in Nicolas’s own, promises an adventurous night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Three</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This is angsty and vague and I'm sorry lol</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This has been hiding out in the notes on my phone for a while now so I just bit the bullet and posted it</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Blood was everywhere. Polluting, staining, hemorrhaging.<br/>
Ignoring the frenzied voices around you was easy when all you saw was red and <em>him</em>. The smell of death hung over you, pressing uncomfortably into your skin, nestling into every available crack and crevice of your being. Bile rose in your throat, eyes and nose stinging. Shaking hands, pristine stiletto nails shining in the sunlight, come to rest in the sticky red.<br/>
Stronger hands grab at you, intent on pulling you away. The dam breaks as the reality of the situation crash down around you; your worst fear come true. And the scream that rent the air was foreign, echoing a pain that you foolishly swore you’d never be privy to.<br/>
Your thoughts raced, your child’s face flickering in and out of focus. They were doomed, destined to be raised like Loretta, father killed for a cause and raised to be a leader for people she’d never known. Another scream forced its way through clenched teeth, nails biting into flesh that was still warm.<br/>
<em>“We can’t lose her!”</em> And Hausen is suddenly there, ripping you away from <em>him</em>, still lying there on the ground, unmoving.<br/>
“They’ll bring him back, I promise.” The tags around your neck burn and you’re seized with a wild impulse to rip them off and fling them away from you as though the action would turn back time.<br/>
But time is unforgiving and you're a born sinner.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know, I know. Super duper short and prewritten. But the holidays are in full swing at my house and my nine month old is cutting three teeth right now so sleep is practically nonexistent for me</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Four</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Inspired by Brand New's song Degausser</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>idk idk because it's after 3 in the morning but here ya go</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time has the unsettling habit of blurring and bending when he sees you under these circumstances. Memories possess the uncanny ability of sneaking in and pasting themselves triumphantly over the present. The act of separation occurs when he surrenders himself over to you.<br/>
When he finds himself lying there next to you, tracing the length of your body with his dark eyes, he aches with the yearning to tell you everything. The truth threatens to spill forth from his mouth, betraying every self-preserving instinct he’s cultivated in the entirety of his life. He teeters on the edge of this precipice at every meeting, convinced he’s ready to take the plunge, until he looks into your eyes.<br/>
He always saw <em>her</em> staring back at him. It’s a sick and twisted joke the universe likes to play on him, a sharp reminder of past transgressions that will haunt him until the day he finally dies. So he grits his teeth and swallows the guilt once more, ignoring the way it stubbornly digs its claws into his throat on the way down.<br/>
His head sinks further into the pillow and the fog clears. You are flesh-and-blood and Veronica is the ghost that indiscriminately crawls out of his head to lay between you during these episodes of insecurity.<br/>
He selfishly allows himself to bask in your warmth for a moment longer, greedy for one more dose of humanity. His eyelids flutter shut at your gentle touch and he finds himself wishing things were different, that he was actually a man and not a monster.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Happy holidays! If I have time I have a short and fluffy holiday drabble that's almost done that may be up by Christmas!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Five</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He traces letters into your back, stringing a phrase together that burned your throat every time</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>warnings: mild dubious consent, drug use and addiction</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He smashes the little white pills with the underside of your favorite coffee mug. You want to look away, you know the process more intimately than you’d ever anticipated, but you couldn’t stop yourself. Once the powder is in two thin, singular lines, he bows his head over the small tray on the side table, almost like he were praying.<br/>
</p><p>The Celebrer vanishes up his nostril and you want to feel…something. Angry, sad, hurt, upset, anything other than the empty hole of acceptance in your chest. A hole he’d carved there himself.<br/>
</p><p>He tilts his head back for a moment with his eyes closed, resting against the messy bed, and you’re seized with the wild impulse to put a pillow to his face and kneel on it.<br/>
</p><p>It takes an average of seven minutes for someone to die of asphyxiation. You wonder if you’d be able to follow through.<br/>
</p><p>Then Nicolas opens his eyes and smiles at you and you know. </p><p>Not like that.</p><p>Something faster. Like pulling a trigger.</p><p><strong>Come here.</strong> He knows you’re…something with him. You always are when he takes Celebrer. You’d had to become creative when it came to giving a deaf man the silent treatment to convey your feelings. It had manifested into completely ignoring him despite his repeated attempts at communication. Every shattered plate, every hole in the wall that made Worick furious, it never phased you. Which never ceased to fan his volatile temper.<br/>
</p><p>But he’d discovered your vice. The one sure thing he could do to smooth things over with you, albeit however temporarily.<br/>
</p><p>You sit in his lap, ignoring his pointed gaze, face blank. The first steps in this tired dance the two of you have been locked in for years.<br/>
</p><p>He presses his face into your hair, sighing heavily as his large hands cup your waist. You feel his dick twitch against your inner thigh and hate how your body immediately reacts to him, a gasp slipping out of your mouth before you could bite it back.<br/>
</p><p>His hand grabs your chin and gently drags your face to meet his. The kiss starts out slow and fairly shallow and you could almost believe he was repentant, apologetic, until his half-hard dick makes a reappearance. Then you remember what this was.<br/>
</p><p>You still don’t stop things, mostly because you don’t want to. Your body craved him the same way he craved the Celebrer. And just like the Celebrer was ruining his life, he was ruining yours. Neither of you had any intentions of stopping and you both knew it. So you let him fuck you on the floor next to the bed and did your best to lose yourself to the pleasure he so eagerly dealt you.</p><p>He traces letters into your back, stringing a phrase together that burned your throat every time.<br/>
<strong>I love you</strong><br/>
</p><p>And he did. But not enough to stop. Never enough to stop.<br/>
</p><p>His love for you wasn’t enough. Never would be.<br/>
</p><p>So you pick yourself off the floor before he voices the words and pull your wrinkled clothes back on.<br/>
</p><p>God, you were so tired. A deep tired that resided in your bones, a tired that you could never shake no matter how much you slept, how much weed you smoked or how much alcohol you drank. It was tethered to the man who couldn’t give you up any more than he could the pills.</p><p>A blond man with an eyepatch wordlessly slides a fresh cup of coffee across the rickety table to you. No words are spoken. He understands. Has seen this play out more times than either of you can count.<br/>
</p><p>“This is never going to end.”<br/>
</p><p>He ignores you and extends an offer to accompany him grocery shopping. <strong>No.</strong><br/>
</p><p>You swallow down the unspoken answer in a mouthful of steaming coffee. You blame the tears pricking your eyes on the blistering beverage. Crying had never changed anything.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>this is a little darker than usual but it's a pretty accurate portrayal of stuff I've been through</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Six</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Your heart's nervous staccato betrays you every time</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>so the recent ufc fights have been pretty bomb  so here's ufc!Nicolas</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His hands are wrapped diligently before every fight. You watch Worick’s precise movements even though he’d never made a mistake and probably never will. He was Nicolas’s most trusted.</p><p>Aside from yourself.</p><p>In the before moments, when the only sound is your mingled breathing, the echoing roar of the crowd nothing but a distant rumble, he places himself in your hands. Words were never spoken, things said with your mouth held empty meaning to him. It was your hands he craved.</p><p>So you run your palms over the black gloves, up his taut arms, to rest on his face. He leans into your touch, eyes closed, the recipient of your silent blessing. 
Your heart’s nervous staccato betrays you every time. Arms wrap tightly around your waist, pulling you into the eye of the storm. Before the screaming crowd envelops you in their frenzied energy and you can’t help the way your heart jumps up into your throat at every blow landed.</p><p>Worick clears his throat loudly, signaling the end. You pull back slightly and Nicolas knows. He places a single kiss to your forehead. The last time he’d touch you before blood would be spilled. Hopefully it wouldn’t be his own.</p><p>His walk is always silent, no music, just the crowd filling the emptiness. Nicolas is in front of you, placed in the middle of the small posse, and you keep your eyes on his tattoo, ignoring the jeers and shouting. Worick is beside you, a steady presence in a sea of uncertainty.</p><p>The walk to the octagon stretches on forever until it doesn’t, Nicolas up the steps without a backward glance. Theo efficiently applies petroleum jelly to Nic’s face and arms, fulfilling his duties as cutman. The day Theo quits is the day your force Nicolas to retire.</p><p>The chairs at Nicolas’s fights always felt the same, no matter the venue, though that may be because you always found yourself perched on the edge shortly after the first round begins. Worick places a short kiss on your temple before joining Theo and Daniel at the cage in Nicolas’s corner, leaving you in the familiar company of Miles and Diego.</p><p>There was already red staining the canvas, the previous fights doing nothing to satiate the spectators’ bloodlust. They always wanted <em>moremoremore</em>, especially from the headliners. Nicolas rarely failed to deliver. For that reason they loved him almost as much as they hated him.</p><p>The bell rings and it begins.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Seven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p><em>Just tonight,</em> he whispered into the hollow of your throat. <em>Just for tonight.</em></p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is intended as Hausen/reader bc i love me some Hausen, he's so underrated</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You’d never given voice to it in nine odd years. Always content to leave it strung out in the disquieted silence stretching endlessly between your battered bodies. The emotion was supposed to be foreign to them, the Twilights. Surely, monsters couldn’t love? Care deeply for another? And yet you cultivated the emotion deep in your chest, away from prying eyes, just close enough for you to mistakenly look past it and pretend that it wasn’t there.</p><p>It slowly wove tendrils between your ribs, burrowing its way steadily into your heart until you could no longer ignore it. Could no longer give it a misnomer to play off the stinging ache as inconsequential, cracked ribs or not.</p><p>Every slide of his searing fingertips over the stray strings of emotion cauterized them, effectively freezing the torrential outpouring in its tracks. Unbeknownst to you, the momentum had been consistently gaining beneath your breastbone, the time ripe for release.</p><p><em>Just tonight,</em> he’d whispered into the hollow of your throat. <em>Just for tonight.</em></p><p>He looks up at you and a beam from the street light outside hits his eyes, illuminating the feelings he’d unmasked under the cover of darkness. And he’d left precious little open to interpretation in those blue irises.</p><p><em>Just tonight,</em> you agree breathlessly, throat tightening around the words. You wouldn’t speak for the rest of the night, save for the sounds of pleasure he’d pull from you. It was almost as though he were methodically deveining the emotion from your body, pulling each delicate strand out of you with his hands and mouth, rendering you hollow.</p><p>There was nothing left to give him, and maybe there hadn’t been anything there in the first place.</p><p>That’s what you told yourself the next morning when you awoke to a cold bed and your bedside table barren of your weapons. The position of the sun was still low in the sky, barely breaching the city’s desolate horizon. Which meant you weren’t late in waking and that he’d presumably left soon after you’d finally surrendered to sleep’s welcoming embrace.</p><p>It was oddly reminiscent of the beginning, him sneaking out of your room in clandestine retreat, as though no one knew. Everyone had known then, just as they do now.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>is this going to turn into something bigger? or is this just another half-baked idea bouncing around my half-baked brain? who knows! because i sure don't!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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